Are Licensed Video Games Finally Getting Better?

over 2 years ago (Edited)

The scary truth for filmgoers is that Marvel films aren't getting any better, not really. The last Thor film was an example of that, but it seems the opposite is becoming true for licensed games. Star Wars, being Disney's biggest IP right after Marvel, has several game studios working on making their own stories based on the SW world. From Ubisoft to a new KOTOR remake by Aspyr.

There are other Marvel projects abound from all other developers, even EA managed to snag a game for them to make. Insomniac has now two other Marvel properties they're working on, which is great that a studio of their caliber is now working on 2 games. We also have a game that is coming from Firaxis, a Marvel turn-based game that has both Wolverine and Blade in it.

It isn't isolated to Marvel games or anything Disney related. So many old beloved franchises are getting good game releases, so many of these notable ones have been on the radar for a while now. Right now, it's time to take a look back at where they've been and how well things are going to go now. While referencing numerous games.

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Success Stories

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There was a time during the 80s and 90s, a lot of the licensed video games were pretty hit-and-miss. This attributed to one or two talented developers figuring out how to make something really enjoyable, before a fully dedicated games studio started working on each of them. The biggest flop we remember from history, that crashed the gaming market was Atari's E.T., which was a colossal failure that paved the way for Nintendo to take over.

Today, things are very different. There's no platform wars involved, every game coming out needs to be good based on their merits. And thing is, for the past few years, it has been getting way better. We had a good selection of Lord of the Rings games, including the recent Shadow of Mordor series, for like nearly 2 decades. Alien Isolation was the first Aliens game that didn't rely on following the shooting game formula, and for that became a cult classic.

This year, both Evil Dead and TMNT titles became successful releases, both were well received by journalists and consumers. Showing that there's little creative bankruptcy these days. In 2018, the best-selling game of all time was Insomniac's Spider-Man. Let's not also forget the South Park games, turning that into an RPG was the best thing that ever happened. Don't even get me started on Dead by Daylight, introducing monsters from so many horror references while being a successful asymmetric online survival horror.

(Also quick drop, the Friday the 13th game's looking pretty good too)

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As the gaming industry starts growing, more and more these days, people find new ways to start making games based on established movie licenses and such. Some have redeemed themselves as well. EA had, at first, ruined their reputation with the Battlefront games, started making up with Squadron and Fallen Order. A sequel to Fallen Order is already on its way too.

Every day, major publishers churn out sequels or blockbuster IPs of their own making. But now they're lending their talents to established IPs, ones coming from various medias like comic books, movies, board-games, mangas, anime, TV shows, etc. I haven't mentioned Japanese ones like Dragon Ball FighterZ or Attack on Titan 2 earlier. Companies owning them need to make money, but it's great to know their standards are much higher than they used to be. Just look at WB, they released a F2P brawler game called Multiversus.

More To Come

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There's a big roster of upcoming games for this year (and the next one). We have a new Harry Potter game coming out, with no association from J.K. Rowling. This isn't a throwaway title, as it has been touted to be a vast open-world RPG game. Developer has a long history of working on various IPs, all of them licensed games.

Insomniac is hard at working on a Spider-Man sequel, right after Miles Morales, even. Not only that, but they announced they're working on a new Wolverine game, which will be hard rated M. As if MCU taking their time with adapting the Max series isn't making me antsy enough.

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There's also an isometric Aliens game coming out, though I have some doubts about this, the devs here don't have much history to convince me on this. It's not always something that'll work out, so tempering my expectations will do. That goes including for the upcoming Robocop game, and sadly for the KOTOR remake. Which is indefinitely delayed now since Aspyr has no idea what to do with it.

I won't always get what I want, but that's fine, considering there's more good done to leave me hopeful. Especially from the likes of Firaxis, releasing their Marvel Midnight Suns this year. Even if years of being sting by badly adapted games, I could hopefully rely on veterans like them to pull this one out. Same with Rocksteady's upcoming Suicide Squad and a co-op Gotham Knights from WB Montreal.

What's next then? EA's Black Panther game? Quantic Dream's Star Wars Eclipse? EA also has a Star Wars strategy game coming out too. Ubisoft as well is being kept busy at another Avatar game that is related to the upcoming sequel film by James Cameron. I might not be able to afford all this, but man, least I can appreciate things looking up compared to how bleak they were in the early 2000s and 2010s.

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Despite how positive the optics look here, there's always a case of Marvel's Avengers happening. Because of publisher interference and deviation from years of planning, we got an underwhelming product instead of something much greater. The same can be said for Cyberpunk 2077, investor pressure pushed that game way too early out of the oven, and end results speak for itself. Games aren't easy to plan and execute in a matter of a year or two, sometimes it takes even longer than 3 years to do so.

Are licensed games getting better? I'd say yeah, definitely. Despite that, I'd have some healthy skepticism to ready myself, in case it doesn't pan out. How that happens is up in the air. But there's way more releases than we deserve now, so that's a good thing overall. Let me know what games you guys are expecting, even if they're under the radar.